Light Curing Apparatus Having a Modular Lamp Housing
A curing apparatus is disclosed. The curing apparatus includes a flash lamp and a lamp housing for containing the flash lamp with the flash lamp's longitudinal axis in parallel with the direction of motion of a moving substrate irradiated by the flash lamp. The lamp housing is capable of attaching to a second lamp housing to form a concatenated lamp housing having a common reflector cavity. The second lamp housing also holds a second flash lamp with the second flash lamp's longitudinal axis in parallel with the direction of the moving substrate under the second flash lamp.
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to light curing apparatuses in general, and, in particular, to a light curing apparatus having a modular lamp housing.
2. Description of Related Art
A thin film on a low-temperature substrate can be cured by exposing the thin film to a brief but high-intensity light pulse. The thin film becomes heated after absorbing the light. This process is often preferred over conventional oven curing when the desired processing temperature is higher than the working temperature of the substrate. The transient heating heats the thin film without heating the substrate, and thus allows the rapid removal of solvents that may be in the thin film, even if their boiling point is significantly higher than the maximum working temperature of the substrate.
The present disclosure provides a light curing system capable of handling high-temperature curing of thin films on low-temperature substrates of various widths.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONIn accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a light curing apparatus includes a flash lamp and a lamp housing for containing the flash lamp with the flash lamp's longitudinal axis in parallel with the direction of motion of a moving substrate irradiated by the flash lamp. The lamp housing is configured to attach to a second lamp housing to form a concatenated lamp housing having a common reflector cavity. The second lamp housing also holds a second flash lamp with the second flash lamp's longitudinal axis in parallel with the direction of the moving substrate under the second flash lamp.
All features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.
The invention itself, as well as a preferred mode of use, further objects, and advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
For the present invention, curing is defined as processing a thin film on a substrate using light, including drying, particle sintering, film densification, chemical reaction initiation, phase transformation, grain growth, annealing, heat treating, etc. The substrate may additionally be a low-temperature substrate. A thin film is defined as a coating of less than 100 microns thick. Examples of low-temperature substrates include paper, plastic or polymer.
Referring now to the drawings and in particular to
Relay rack 130 includes an adjustable power supply, a conveyance control module, and a strobe control module. The adjustable power supply can produce pulses with an energy of up to 4 kilojoules per pulse per lamp. The adjustable power supply is connected to xenon flash lamp 121, and the intensity of the emission from xenon flash lamp 121 can be varied by controlling the amount of current passing through xenon flash lamp 121. The power, pulse duration and pulse repetition frequency of the pulsed emissions from xenon flash lamp 121 are electronically adjusted and synchronized to the web speed to allow optimum curing of thin film 102 without damaging substrate 103, depending on the optical, thermal and geometric properties of thin film 102 and substrate 103.
Curing apparatus 100 can preferably accommodate a web of any width in 3-inch increments. Conveyor system 110 can move substrate 103 at speeds from 2 to 1000 feet/min.
During the curing operation, conveyor system 110 moves thin film 102 under lamp housing 120 where thin film 102 is cured by rapid pulses emitted from xenon flash lamp 121. The power, duration and repetition rate of the emissions from xenon flash lamp 121 are controlled by the strobe control module within relay rack 130, and the speed at which substrate 203 is being moved past lamp housing 120 is determined by the conveyor control module within relay rack 130.
A sensor 150, which can be mechanical, electrical, or optical, is utilized to sense the speed of conveyor system 110. For example, the conveyor belt speed of conveyor belt system 110 can be sensed by detecting a signal from a shaft encoder connected to a wheel that makes contact with the moving conveyor belt. In turn, the pulse repetition rate can be synchronized with the conveyor belt speed of conveyor belt system 110. The synchronization of the strobe pulse rate f is given by:
where
s=web speed [ft/min]
o=overlap factor
w=exposure width in the direction of web motion [in]
Overlap factor is the average number of strobe pulses that are received by a substrate at any one location. For example, with a web speed of 200 ft/min, an overlap factor of 5, and a curing head width of 2.75 inches, the pulse rate of the strobe is 72.7 Hz.
Xenon flash lamp 121 can provide pulses of different intensity, pulse length, and pulse repetition frequency. For example, xenon flash lamp 121 can provide 10 μs to 10 ms pulses with a 3″ by 6″ wide footprint at a pulse repetition rate of up to 1 kHz. The spectral content of the emissions from xenon flash lamp 121 ranges from 200 nm to 2,500 nm. The spectrum can be adjusted by replacing the quartz lamp with a cerium doped quartz lamp to remove most of the emission below 350 nm. The quartz lamp can also be replaced with a sapphire lamp to extend the emission from approximately 140 nm to approximately 4,500 nm. Filters may also be added to remove other portions of the spectrum. Xenon flash lamp 121 can also be a water wall flash lamp that is sometimes referred to as a Directed Plasma Arc (DPA) lamp.
When xenon flash lamp 121 is pulsed, thin film 102 is momentarily heated. When a rapid pulse train is combined with moving substrate 103, a uniform cure can be attained over an arbitrarily large area in the web direction as each section of thin film 102 may be exposed to multiple pulses, which approximates a continuous curing system such as an oven.
With reference now to
Lamp housing 120 is attached to conveyor system 100 from
Lamp housing 120 is designed to be modular in nature. In other words, lamp housing 120 is capable of attaching to an other lamp housing, and the other lamp housing holds another set of flash lamps with their longitudinal axis in parallel with the direction of a moving substrate.
Referring now to
In
The concatenation of lamp housings 120 and 120′ enables the curing thin films on an arbitrarily wide substrate within a common reflector housing multiple identical drive electronic units, which allows for easier retrofitting to existing print lines. Another benefit is that the radiated beam pattern is very uniform perpendicular to the web conveyance. This results in exceptionally uniform curing of a thin film as it is being conveyed past lamp housings 120 and 120′. This is due in part to the averaging effect of multiple flash lamps sharing a single reflector. The averaging over multiple flash lamps also reduces the lamp-to-lamp uniformity requirement throughout the lifetime of flash lamps.
The modular design of lamp housing, such as lamp housing 120, also allows for the duplication of the drive electronics. Since flash lamps are merely duplicated with the addition of lamp housing, the drive electronics do not have to be redesigned for different web widths.
The modular design of lamp housing also allows the duplication of process parameters for curing a thin film as it is being conveyed. Since the identical drive electronics and identical lamps are used, the setting for the process parameters are identical and no additional curing process development, which is time consuming and costly, is needed for upgrading to a wider format.
As has been described, the present invention provides a light curing apparatus having a modular lamp housing.
While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to a preferred embodiment, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and detail may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
Claims
1. A curing apparatus comprising:
- a flash lamp; and
- a lamp housing for containing said flash lamp with said flash lamp's longitudinal axis in parallel with the direction of motion of a moving substrate irradiated by said flash lamp, wherein said lamp housing is configured to attach to an other lamp housing to form a common reflector cavity lamp housing, wherein said other lamp housing also holds an additional flash lamp with said additional flash lamp's longitudinal axis in parallel with said direction of said moving substrate.
2. The curing apparatus of claim 1, wherein said lamp housing is aligned with said other lamp housing via guide pins.
3. The curing apparatus of claim 1, wherein said lamp housing and said other lamp housing are held together with a plurality of common tension rods.
4. The curing apparatus of claim 1, wherein said curing apparatus further includes internal channels for transporting fluid intended for cooling said curing apparatus.
5. The curing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the width of said lamp housing is different from the width of said other lamp housing.
6. The curing apparatus of claim 1, wherein said flash lamps are xenon flash lamps.
7. The curing apparatus of claim 1, wherein said flash lamps are Directed Plasma Arc lamps.
8. The curing apparatus of claim 1, wherein said curing apparatus further includes a strobe control module for controlling power, duration and repetition rate of a plurality of pulses to be discharged by said flash lamps.
9. The curing apparatus of claim 8, wherein said curing apparatus further includes a conveyor control module, in conjunction with said strobe control module, for synchronizing in real-time said repetition rate of said plurality of pulses with the speed at which said substrate is being moved under said flash lamps.
Type: Application
Filed: Aug 30, 2010
Publication Date: Mar 1, 2012
Patent Grant number: 9599397
Inventor: Douglas K. Jackson (Round Rock, TX)
Application Number: 12/871,258